Sustainable Finance Regulations

Sustainable Finance | Risk & Regulatory

Building on the 2018 Sustainable Finance Action Plan (SFAP), the European Commission announced their renewed strategy that provides a roadmap to the financial services sector to increase capital flows towards a sustainable economy. This will support actions as set out in the European Green Deal and contribute to managing financial risks associated with environmental and social issues. 

Sustainable investments need to grow substantially, for example for the Netherlands alone to – annually – EUR 260 billion by 2030. The financial services sector plays inherently a vital role in realising the EU’s European Green Deal ambition. As a result, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) risks and opportunities are becoming more and more relevant for financial institutions.

In particular, there is a strong focus on the ‘E’ in ‘ESG’, covering climate and other environmental risks. Rules and regulations are important policy levers towards a Net Zero Emissions economy. Central banks, standard-setters and supervisors increasingly take an active role in setting rules to steer financial institutions in the right direction, spearheading the sustainable finance agenda in many boardrooms. The strong momentum among policy makers resulted in a fast growing set of rules and regulations as well as ambitious timelines for financial institutions to address them.

New or updated sustainable finance regulations are issued with great regularity, giving them not much time to fully crystallize and mature, which is an ongoing process. That is, not if you have committed yourself as an institution to contribute towards the 2030 climate goals of the EU Green Deal. There is, therefore, a strong call for action.

KPMG supports banks, insurance companies, asset managers, private equity and pension funds in meeting ESG regulations and supervisory expectations. We strongly believe this is best achieved through a holistic learning-by-doing approach, considering also business opportunities.

We support the financial services industry by acting as a navigator through the regulatory landscape, being an overall design and implementation partner and delivering technical expertise. We do this through disciplinary teams covering the required competencies: risk, regulatory, sustainability, strategy & operations, people & change and technology.

For more information, please contact one of our experts.

Partner Financial Risk Management
KPMG in the Netherlands
Cattel.Lennart@kpmg.nl

Partner Sustainable Finance
KPMG in the Netherlands
Frikkee.Marco@kpmg.nl

Partner, Head of Financial Risk Management Banking
KPMG in the Netherlands
Thomassen.Gertjan@kpmg.nl